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Sap!

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I thought that with age and wisdom we were supposed to become more jaded, more distinctly un-sentimental. In some aspects, this is true. For example, I can’t watch one of those Disney princess movies without wanting to gag- I mean really, Prince Charming is kind of skeevy when you think about it: stalking women and throwing shoes at them, hints of necrophilia and the like. I look at my little scrapbook pile of love notes from high school and want to laugh and/or cry at my naive oversimplification of pretty much everything.

But in one of those odd juxtapositions that make up life, as my romantic notions slowly morphed under the weight of reality of life into something a little more muted and stable, I’ve become ridiculously oversentimental when it comes to my kids (both human and furry.) I oooh and aaah over Golden Retriever socks. I want to save Brody’s first baby tooth, meticulously plucked off the floor by my three year old with the pride of a palaeontologist finding a new T Rex bone. And I can’t watch the movies.

I’ve never been good at watching those kind of movies to begin with.meetdoughero_806x453
Old Yeller? Never seen it. Where the Red Fern Grows? Should be illegal to show in schools. Those are understandable, though. But the rest of it? Lady and the Tramp- can’t deal with the shelter dogs. All Dogs Go to Heaven ruined my eighth grade year. I just made it through Up- barely- simultaneously laughing at how perfectly Doug encapsulated Golden Retrieverdom and crying at how much he reminded me of Mulan.

If anything, I’ve gotten worse about this stuff, not better, as I get older. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s that while the reality of most human relationships are much more complicated than they seem as a kid, our relationships with our pets are just as genuine and uncomplicated at 35 as they are at 5. It is comfortingly simple in its straightforward nature. When a dog looks up at you with those big eyes and gives you an “I love you” lick, it means exactly that.

My nostalgia over that innocent type of relationship is what leaves me a sobbing heap when I find myself emotionally exploited, over and over and over, by family movies, author memoirs (what is it with the latest trend of authors making the requisite pet memoir?), and toilet paper commercials. I am consoled in my misery by my technician Amy, who confided in me today that Hotel for Dogs left her a weeping mess. Guess I’m not alone in this.

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Comments

  1. “I do not like the cone of shame.”

    OMG! I almost died throughout that movie. I didn’t cry, but I wanted to really, REALLY bad.

  2. Ok, so I know exactly what you mean and I share your childhood history of sappiness and I too am getting worse as I get older. I did see Old Yeller. Once. And that was more than enough for me. Where the Red Fern Grows was shown in my school probably twice a year in elementary school, and I was the ONLY one crying. After a while I ignored the 2nd half of the movie and wrote notes instead. I have not yet seen Up, but it was on in Walmart last night and my husband and I stopped to watch about 10 min of it and it looks cute, may have to rent it.
    And I also bawl from happiness at the end of Hotel for Dogs. I think it’s impossible not to if you’re a true animal lover.
    …and…i have to admit…I always buy the Cottonelle toilet paper….because of the puppy on the front :”> My husband has accepted this, lol.

    • Me too. I just rented the movie to watch w/ my boyfriend (I’d seen it in the theater) and I started tearing up the second he first met kid Ellie, because I knoew what was coming. O loved Dug. He totally made the movie 🙂

  4. You know I absolutely adore “Where the Red Fern Grows” but I will never ever EVER read that book again. Once was more than enough for me and I was a kid. So I can’t imagine how it would tear me up today.

    We had to stop “I am Legend” so I could compose myself. I cried with the dog scene. Same thing with “Gran Turino,” I wanted to know what was going to happy to Daisy, the yellow lab. And “Up” gorgeous Pixar but dear god, it’s a tear jerker. I mean it has it’s happy moments and there is a ROTTIE!! but man I’m a sap or something. Any dog commercial, I’m all OOOOH DOGGIE! And the link I posted on FB yesterday about Gunny. That made me go home and just grab Cookie in a bear hug and never let go. B and I always laugh about her when we get home because it’s like we’ve been gone for years (she acts much like those dogs did when they saw their soldiers for the first time in a long deployment). But last night, the sight of her nub wagging made me teary.

    You’re not alone, Jess. Not at all.

      • Brent’s really good at warning me with parts that are coming up, so I can go to my happy place until it’s over. But my imagination is usually worse than the movie. 🙁

    • The first time I read Where the Red Fern Grows I think I was in third grade. The sound of my sobbing woke my mom up at about 1am. This was through two closed doors and down a hallway.

  5. I’m surprised you didn’t mention the commercials against animal cruelty. I don’t even try to change the channel. I just turn the TV OFF. I can’t even listen to my favorite Sarah McLachlan CD anymore because of those.

    Yes, I’m a big sappy baby too. I’ve never seen Old Yeller, Bambi, or any of the other movies you mentioned for the same reasons. And now… I’m not too sure I want to see UP.

    *hugs*

    • Ugh, I think I’ve blocked them from memory. The second I hear the first strains of “Arms of the Angel” I leave the room.

  6. I cried through My Dog Skip. Cried while reading Marley & Me and I won’t watch the movie. The whole time I watched Gran Torino I kept thinking something bad would happen to the dog. Made my husband tell me when the dog scene in I am Legend was over because I had left the room. My eyes are tearing up right now while writing this comment. I think I need to leave work and go home. 🙂

    • I was the same way with Gran Turino! I was so happy that Daisy was okay but then I was bawling that her master wouldn’t be there to take care of her.

  7. guilty here as well. i am indeed getting sappier and mushier as i grow older. i cried reading the norton books (he’s the world traveling cat). cried watching my dog skip, an american tail, and even tinker bell for crying out loud (no pun intended). that’s when i look at my three cats and BAWL (the kind that makes your nose disgustingly runny, your nose searingly red, and your eyes swollen). glad to know i’m not the only one 🙂

  8. You put it perfectly about why these movies get to us… When I first watched Up, I wasn’t sure if the dog’s name was Doug, Dug, or Dog! 🙂 And sometimes I wish we had collars like they had in that movie…just sometimes.

    • I don’t know that I would like a collar like that .Especially at work. LOL! “I HATE YOU WOMAN IN WHITE COAT!!! NOT THE THERMOMETER!!!”

  9. I am with you there. It seems the older I have gotten, the less jaded I get, not the reverse. Lets not even get started on the Budweiser commercials with the horses….

  11. I’m another one who sobbed while watching My Dog Skip (in large part because a fantastic and amazing Jack Russell was my dearest puppy girl at one time). Oh I miss my Phoebe.

    Dug is so wonde-SQUIRREL!

  13. I am now SO glad I never watched I Am Legend after reading these posts!! I have never had an interest in the movie because honestly it looked boring and I think anything having to do with zombies/mutants or the like is dumb and don’t watch those movies. But any movie with an unhappy doggy moment instantly goes down in my book of “movies that suck and I will never watch again.” I was a little jittery during Gran Torino, but I’m glad nothing bad happened to Daisy.
    My husband and I rented that Johnny Depp movie The Secret Window, and he has an Aussie…well, let’s just say at the end of the movie he doesn’t 🙁 And my husband had seen the movie years ago and forgot about that part, so I had no warning. I cried, and after consoling me he had to finish the movie by himself.

  14. And I agree about the Sarah McLaughlin commercials!! My husband had learned to use the Mute button when they come on so I can’t hear them from the other room.

  15. I have the same problem – Up I saw in the theatre and it took all I had not to burst into tears.

    I hardly ever watch TV anymore, so don’t get to see all the shows or commercials. But I get teary-eyed reading adoption posts on pet blogs too.

  16. I don’t even go to those movies, and when they come on television I avoid them the first 10 times they run, then succumb and weep in the privacy of my own home!
    Love the Brody baby tooth and your resident “palaeontologist”. : )

    • I was watching it with my turtleneck pulled up around my eyeballs, screaming “WHY Pixar, WHY???” at the TV for the first 10 minutes.

  17. I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one who became overly emotional during what I call “that scene” in I Am Legend. My date was a little horrified over me crying for (in his words) “just a dog in a movie.” Let’s just say I never went out with him again.

    I have become notorious in my circle of friends as the one who will cry when an animal gets hurt/dies/gets lost/gets adopted/gets found/saves the day etc.. but not so much with the crying when it has to do with the human characters. Except for Atonement. That book and then later on the movie made me cry for days on end.

    • I can’t agree more. I loved I Am Legend, I thought it was a really good movie.. and Will Smith got his relationship with his dog perfectly, which is exactly why is was such an awful and heart-wrenching scene.

      Atonement leaves me emotional for days after I watch it. I know what it’ll do to me, but I just love the movie so much.

      And I have to admit, I cried during Episode III. When Anakin turned to the dark side and started slaughtering the younglings, I lost it. 🙁

  19. There’s a reason the ASPCA and WWF get monthly donations from us and I wish I could say it was for their good causes. Nope. It is their commercials.

    I’ve avoided any movies that had any indication of harm coming to dogs. I even felt bad in Zombieland.

    One not listed above was “Snoopy Come Home”. Mind you, the beagle mix we had growing up was named “Snoopy.” It was probably the worst choice for my parents to let me watch it on TV after Snoopy died. When they start singing “Snoo-oo-oo-oo-oopy, Snoo-oo-oo-oo-oo-py, why oh why did you go?” I lost it. I haven’t been able to watch it since.

  20. I cry every time I watch My Dog Skip as well, but I love that movie. Dances with Wolves…The Sarah McLachlan commercial gets to me as well, especially the dog quivering at the beginning…looking into the camera. Whenever I hear that song, I think of that commerical now as well.

    I haven’t seen any of the new “pet-related” movies because I assumed it would end up in a bawl-fest. I just breezed by Hotel For Dogs on HBO and thought for a second I should DVR it…who am I kidding?

  22. The Pedigree commercial really gets me. You know, the “I am a good dog” one… Tears, every time.
    I was a mess during I Am Legend, the only parts where I was gripping my fiance’s arm were the parts where the dog was in danger.

  23. Zombieland! I think I was the only one crying in the theatre!
    Fievel in An American Tail had me crying every time!
    And I listened to Marley and Me as an audio CD in the car and had to pull over while I was driving to cry.

  24. A couple not mentioned here: Eight below-even the commercials gave me goosebumps! Milo and Otis. My cats all watched that once, very interested, but that was it. I also don’t like those Pedigree and shelter commercials. The starving kid commercials, fine, but not the homeless pets. I refuse to watch any sort of Animal Cops. I once watched Emergency Vets. I made the mistake of turning on a National Geographic special about rescuing the animals after Hurricane Katrina and the other one, Ike? Yeah, bad idea. I don’t really remember the Where the Red Fern Grows movie, but the book ends for me after they win the hunting tournament. I read (listened to) the I am Legend book, and the dog part is way different, but still bad. Any movie that makes me cry is dubbed a “stupid movie.”

    Oh, and don’t go to the (no-kill) shelter w/ you mom-in-law to drop off their dog cuz they won’t take the time to properly train her, then walk around, reading the stories of all the dogs there.

    I also have three of my cat’s baby teeth. Not sure exactly who’s, but I have 2 canines and a molar. They are all by themselves in a compartment of my bead tray.

    • I’ve completely repressed all memories of Eight Below. The older sled dog in that movie? Oh that makes me cry. That movie broke my heart.

      And I agree the book version of I am Legend is much different. It was easier to swallow in the book.

      • Eight Below was horrible, I was crying through the whole movie! And its even worse knowing its a true story. I’m sorry, I would’ve found room to cram those dogs on the helicopter or I would’ve stayed behind with them!

        • I agree, the true story part makes it even worse. I would have taken the dogs with me or stayed behind. No way would I have left them.

    • Yes! Homeward Bound, The Incredible Journey! The tears start when the movie starts because I know what happens later! And I still cannot read or watch Marley & Me. I got the book for Christmas the year I lost Shaq to bone cancer, and I think I read the first two pages. Couldn’t bring myself to go on, and I still can’t…almost 3 years later!

  27. I loved Up. That is my dog, exactly. Not too bright, but very loyal and sweet! 🙂 I like the sepia-tonedish photos taped into the album over the credits of dog and boy and man having fun in the park, at the zoo, etc. The perfect one is at the end where they’re all in the park and you see Doug lying on the blanket snoozing away, home at last. Man, I’m gonna make myself weepy.

  28. So I confess that I am definitely another weepy mess when it comes to movies and commercials and anything else like that when it comes to dogs. I read Marley and Me, cried. Saw the movie and while I was thinking “you know, they really aren’t very good owners” I still sobbed at the end. That being said, I have a book to recommend. It’s “A Big Little Life” by Dean Koontz. It’s non-fiction and you will definitely cry like a baby (two full days for me, I admit it), but it’s such a joyful account of what our fur babies mean to us. So don’t read the last parts of it on a plane!!!! 🙂

    • Dean Koontz is one that truly loves his dog. I love how eloquently he speaks about Trixie. It made me realize that I’m not so crazy for sharing those same feeling about my own furbabies.

  29. Have you guys watched the previous to Hachiko yet? It’s based on a true story of an Akita in Tokyo who waited for her owner every night at the train station to walk home with him. Many years later of doing this, the man of course dies and does not come, but Hachiko waits for him there day and night. The people of Tokyo erected a statue at the train station to honor Hachiko’s loyalty to her human. The American movie has Richard Gere playing the lead. I am tearing up just writing this post!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaS37E3gKOU